


we deserve a soft epilogue, my love

by majesdane



Series: que estaba tan enamorada de ella como el primer día [1]
Category: Seis Hermanas
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 15:47:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6430612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdane/pseuds/majesdane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>i love you, i can’t live without you.</i> | Celia, Aurora, and everything in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we deserve a soft epilogue, my love

become dust with me,  
insignificant and everywhere,  
for i will love you even after  
your marrow isn't but  
a whisper in your bones  
\-- alysia harris, _death poem_

 

 

 

"You must be Maria," Aurora says cheerfully.

"Celia," Celia corrects her.

And that is how it begins.

;;

Aurora is fun and smart and passionate and pretty --

( _very_ pretty)

\-- and unlike any other woman that Celia's known. She makes Celia's heart race, knocks it straight off the _Petra-Petra-Petra_ course it's been on for so long. Aurora isn't like Petra at all, Aurora understands exactly everything Celia's struggled with for so long. And she knows Celia, the _real_ Celia, not the façade that Celia's worn. Aurora is the first person that Celia doesn't have to pretend with, and it feels like waking up after a long sleep. 

She still feels that Petra-centered pang in her heart.

(the sting seems to linger less and less)

When Aurora tells her, _I want to give you something_ , the last thing Celia expects is for Aurora to put her hands on either side of Celia's face and kiss her. Aurora is too clever, too good, how could she want someone like Celia in her life? It doesn't seem possible.

And it's remarkable, really, how different kissing Aurora is from kissing Petra; it feels _real_ , in a way Celia can't quite explain. Aurora's mouth is warm and firm against her own, and the stroking of her thumb against Celia's cheek makes Celia's head spin. She can feel the spark of something deep inside of her. She feels like she's walking along the edge of a precipice.

(as long as aurora's kissing her like this, celia wouldn't mind tumbling off)

;;

There is a time, one day, at Hotel Excelsior when they're lying in bed together -- Aurora half undressed, Celia drunk on kisses -- when Aurora catches Celia's wrist and slowly turns it over to reveal the long white scar on the underside of it. Celia's first instinct is to jerk away -- most days she forgets the scars are even there, but right now it's like she's been cut open and exposed -- but Aurora, as if knowing this, soothes her with a soft kiss on the side of her mouth.

"It's okay," Aurora murmurs. "It's okay."

And then -- Aurora bends her head and presses a kiss to the scars on Celia's wrists, one on either side. Her breath is warm against Celia's skin. Celia can't breathe; it feels like there's a fist around her heart, squeezing it tight.

"You don't need to be ashamed of these," Aurora says. She runs her fingers lightly along one, moves her hand down to intertwine her fingers with Celia's. "You've been so brave. Please don't forget that."

Celia thought she knew what love was, once, with what she felt for Petra. But this, what she feels right now, feels so much bigger than that. It feels like it could fill up this entire room. More than that -- it could go spilling out the windows, spilling out into the world for everyone to see. She pulls Aurora to her and kisses Aurora with such an intensity that it surprises even herself.

Aurora tastes like the cafe they just came from; coffee and cinnamon.

Celia can't believe she found her.

;;

But, then, as it often happens --

Things fall apart. And Aurora leaves.

Celia thought they were inseparable, but now she knows they're not. Now she knows there are bigger things out there, things she can't fight against no matter how hard she tries. _I'm getting married_ , Aurora says, and the ground drops out from under Celia's feet.

And it's not fair, it's never been fair, and Celia wants to fight, to kick and scream, but there's nothing she can do. 

"In the end, Aurora, I'm the least of it all," she says, and it's a truth so painfully real she can hardly stand it. Aurora will lose everything if she goes to Cáceres to marry this man; everything she was, everything she ever could be. But the fight in Aurora has vanished and the reality of the situation swallows them whole.

All she can do is watch Aurora leave. She's left with the feeling of Aurora's mouth still pressed hard and desperate against Celia's for one last kiss, her fingers tangled in Celia's hair.

(and petra is gone now too, 

and there's a fleeting second where celia remembers the press of sharp metal against her skin,

and the warm, slick feeling of new blood;

she will never do that again, but something in her lingers,

and for a second, she almost might.)

She doesn't want to wake up the next day, but she does, somehow. And the next day after that, and the next, and she doesn't know how she's able to get up every morning and keep on living, not after losing Petra and Aurora all at the same time, but she does. Even if most of the time now it feels like she's not really there. And there's no one to explain it to, no one who can really understand. Just like that, she realizes, she's all alone again, adrift in an ocean of sadness. How easily things can slip away from the moment when they feel most secure.

And Celia does resent Aurora, in a way, at first. Because how can she not? Aurora has left her behind. And yet, Celia can't quite hate her, can't quite commit to resenting her, because who _couldn't_ understand that, the desire to want to do anything to help your family? Celia gave up her dreams for her sisters, hadn't she? Given up the Sorbonne? It's just that Aurora's sacrifice feels so much bigger, cuts so much deeper. Because at least Celia hadn't given up who she _was_ , and the only heart she'd broken had been her own.

Aurora's letters become less frequent, less sweet, less of the woman Celia loved. It's as if the distance between them is more than just physical, as if it's cut Celia right out of Aurora's heart all together and something wrong has been forced into the hole that's left.

Celia can't hate her, even if there is a part of her that really wants to, if only to make things easier to bear. At night, she lies in bed and wonders if maybe, despite what Aurora's letters say, Aurora is wondering about her too; if Aurora dreams of her too; if sometimes Aurora's heart aches from missing her too much. 

Sometimes, it's almost enough.

;;

It's a nightmare, at first, when Aurora returns. She is nothing like the Aurora that Celia knew before. She is cold and distant, her eyes hard and piercing. Her words are short and sharp and biting; she wants absolutely nothing to do with Celia, she says. Aurora never wants she see her again. Aurora hates her. 

Celia's eyes burn with tears she won't -- _can't_ \-- let fall and it takes everything within her to force the words out: _I never want to see you again either._

And for a moment, Celia almost hates her too.

But then Aurora is kissing her --

(i love you, i can't live without you)

\-- with such an intensity that it makes Celia weak in the knees. She wouldn't care right now if Merceditas walked right in and saw them, if everyone in the whole of Madrid -- the whole of _Spain_ even, the _world_ \-- saw them, because the only thing she can think about is that she is kissing Aurora and Aurora is kissing her back. Aurora has come back to her. _For_ her. She holds onto Aurora as tightly as she can, to steady herself, to keep herself grounded. Celia feels like she's a kite without a string, floating off madly into the endless sky.

It doesn't feel real either, when Aurora's tongue brushes against Celia's bottom lip or when Aurora shrugs off her coat or when Aurora's hands skim over Celia's bare skin, like flames licking against her. It doesn't feel real until later, when Aurora's arms are wrapped around Celia's waist, her body pressed against Celia's back.

"Cariño," Aurora purrs against Celia's ear, and it's the sweetest sound Celia's ever heard.

;;

Arganzuela is like a dream.

That first morning, Celia wakes filled with the brightest sense of possibility that she's ever felt. She rolls over, and kisses Aurora awake, laughing with outrageous happiness as Aurora grumbles and pushes Celia away teasingly before pulling Celia back in for one long, deep kiss. When they pull away, Aurora smiles at her, a slow, sleepy smile that makes Celia's heart turn over in her chest.

"I never want to be without you again," Celia tells Aurora and kisses her again hard enough to prove it.

"Ich liebe dich," Aurora sighs, as Celia's hand drifts across Aurora's hip, slides inward. Celia loves the way Aurora lapses into German at times, loves the way the words roll off of her tongue; Aurora's accent makes the hard words soft. Celia teaches her French and English in return, whispers _je t'aime_ in Aurora's ear as they're both drifting off to sleep, pants _please, don't stop_ when Aurora's hand is between her legs.

They settle into a routine, despite everything, despite Celia's shaky start as a teacher and Aurora's fears about being discovered. Slowly, eventually, things even out. Stabilize. Celia's students thrive, Aurora's fears dissipate, and sometimes Celia forgets that she had a life _before_ all of this. Before holding hands over early morning breakfasts and grading papers and nudging a dozing Aurora awake with her foot and staying in bed until midday on the weekends. 

Now, she kisses Aurora whenever she wants because she _can_. Because here, in her house -- in _their_ house, it's just as much Aurora's as Celia's -- it's only them. She'll never get tired of it.

"Married life," Aurora calls it once, jokingly.

Celia's breath catches in her throat. 

"I would marry you if I could," she says.

She is so full of longing for Aurora, always. She wishes she could stand on the rooftops and shout it, how much she loves Aurora. Sometimes she daydreams about telling her other sisters about her and Aurora's relationship, imagines Aurora and her sitting side-by-side in the grand living room of her parent's house, just like all of the other couples.

That night, curled in bed, Aurora says, "And I would marry you too." She takes Celia's hand and presses it against the growing swell of her belly. "I want to do everything with you."

;;

Clemente arrives in Arganzuela.

It's remarkable, really, how quickly everything begins to unravel. Celia can see it happening before it even does, can see their future stretching out into some gray hazy of anxiety and uncertainty. Aurora grips her hand tight -- too tight -- and Celia can see her edges beginning to fray. They have had a life here, a good life, a better life than so many others; it terrifies Celia to imagine losing everything. 

(again)

When they make love that evening, there's a sad kind of urgency to it, and unspoken acknowledgement that their days are numbered. This could be the last time; it hangs over them, a sharp blade hovering over the thread between them, about to slice down.

It twists Celia's insides into knots; she had promised Aurora that nothing or no one would tear them apart. She would go to the ends of the earth -- or further, even -- to keep that promise. But there's a part of her that says this can't last, that no matter how hard they fight they won't win in the end. 

She remembers the touch of Aurora's lips against the thin white scars on her wrists, remembers the way Aurora had told her she was brave. Celia had never felt brave then; it was Aurora who'd been brave. Aurora, with her charm and passion and ideals. It was Aurora who was the light to lead Celia out of the darkest part of her life.

Aurora, who kissed her.

Aurora, who saved her. 

Celia has to be brave now, for both of them.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to anamatics for looking this over.


End file.
